


when i'm dead i won't join their ranks

by svladcjelli



Series: War is Hell (MASH AU) [1]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pre-Slash, mash au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svladcjelli/pseuds/svladcjelli
Summary: Schofield writes a will. (In which Captain Schofield is a surgeon in the Korean War just trying to survive.)
Relationships: Tom Blake & William Schofield
Series: War is Hell (MASH AU) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1869796
Comments: 15
Kudos: 14





	when i'm dead i won't join their ranks

**Author's Note:**

> WELCOME BACK TO aus that nobody will care about!!!!!!! ok ok yes so basically uuuuh mash is Good and my favourite series and also i have no self control. this is gonna be a series though!! sorry there isnt any backstory, i'll get to it at some point

At just past fourteen-hundred hours, Rossi threw down a straight that ultimately beat Will at their game of cards. Will groaned. 

“That means you owe me, what, thirty quid now?” Of course Rossi was keeping track.

“I’ll get it to you next time we’re paid.” He was never the best at gambling and every time he lost another check, he wondered why he still played. 

Tom was out on R&R and reckoned he was in Tokyo by now. After an intense week of casualties, he really deserved the rest but Will couldn’t help but miss him. As much as he enjoyed Rossi’s company, it just wasn't the same. 

A knock at the door. They recognized the tone of the knock, just like they would for everyone else living in the camp. 

“Come in!” Rossi called, not looking up from shuffling the deck in his hand. Colonel Smith walked into the Swamp looking more somber than usual, immediately putting Will on edge. 

“It was Tom’s turn to serve the eighth, but seeing as he’s not here-” 

“You need one of us to go,” Rossi finished Smith’s sentence with a frown, “I went last time.” 

Will glanced between the two, eventually taking the hint. “I can go. I don’t mind.” 

Smith sighed. “I do hate sending you boys out there, but they need all the help they can get.” 

At nineteen-hundred hours, the sun had barely set and the sky was somewhere between orange and deep purple. The first thing he noticed about the frontlines of the 8th Battalion was the constant shelling that seemed to never end. 

This wasn’t uncommon, sure, but it was _so_ loud. Distracting, even. He made it inside to scrub up and was met with a frantic surgeon who looked like he had seen Hell. And in many ways, maybe he did. 

“Are you the replacement surgeon?” 

“Oh, uh - yeah, I suppose so. Uh, I’m Schofield but - replacement?”

“There were originally two of us. That’s why they sent you.” 

Will could feel the loud _boom_ s of the shelling through the heels of his feet. 

“How-”

“Mortar fire.”

The surgeon swayed on his feet. 

“Jesus. How long has it been since you last slept?” Will let concern seep into his voice. 

It took him a minute to respond. “Ah, say… a good eighteen hours.” 

Eighteen hours of constant shelling and a rapid influx of casualties? 

“Go lie down. I can handle my own.” 

“Are you sure? It’s a lot.” 

“I’m sure.” 

It was a bit of a win-lose situation. On one hand, Will sent away the only surgeon in the vicinity, and on the other, it eliminated him from collapsing from exhaustion. 

Another _boom_ rang through the small hut - his newfound OR. It made the ceiling lights sway in a way that made Will uneasy. 

It never stopped. There was a steady ring in his ears from the constant, _constant,_ shelling that he couldn’t shake. Out of all the times he had served for the 8th Battalion as a frontline surgeon, he’d never felt a bone-deep fear. 

He felt like he was going to die. 

In between patients, the shelling never let up. He found a scrap of paper and a pen and decided to do something he should’ve a long time ago. 

_“To my father,”_ He began to write, _“I leave everything I own except for the following : To Tom Blake, I leave…”_

He drew a blank. His robe? No, it had to be more extravagant. What were things that Tom liked? What would be enough for him? 

He supposed he would write backward.

_He’d start with Lauri. He wasn’t sure what Lauri would like, but he thought back to a time of her hearty laughter. It was a late night on post-op shift and he bumped into Lauri in the stockroom while searching for a bottle of penicillin._

_And she said something - something that made him laugh. He couldn’t remember for the life of him what she had said, but he remembered her laugh._

He would leave her his Groucho Marx nose and glasses. Maybe it would make her laugh someday. 

_And Father Leslie - or just Leslie, as he often insisted, not caring for the formalities he was engrained to abide by._

Will’s hands worked with practiced ease. He knew he should’ve been more focused on the patient lying on the table, but he couldn’t keep his head from wandering away from the sound of shelling. 

_Leslie was a spiteful person and sometimes Will wondered why he became a priest in the first place. It was a visiting General - one of the few you ought not to mess with. It didn’t matter to Leslie’s need for vengeance after a mess hall incident which postponed his sermon and after hours of planning, he had a scheme to interrupt the General’s meal. When the news reached Colonel Smith, he wasn’t happy and tried to stop Leslie._

_But the Father was a stubborn man._

_He followed through and hours later, he heard the General shout that if Leslie weren’t a priest, his life wouldn’t be worth a nickel._

A nickel, that’s what Will would leave him. A nickel and his everlasting respect. 

_Colonel Smith. He was a warm man and in many ways, Will looked up to him. He was a natural-born leader but a just one, and kind-spirited nonetheless. They were on a break after a rough wave in OR._

Will glanced at the influx of patients. There were too many casualties and not enough hands and it wasn’t for the first time he wished Smith was standing by his side. 

_“That’s the thing about fish. You need to be patient, patience is key. They bite and get scared and try to swim away - and there! That’s when the hook gets them.”_

_Ever since the draft, Will had missed his father a great deal. He thought of him every day and hoped to God he was doing alright on his own._

_Smith made him miss his father a little less._

_He always read him poetry by W.B. Yeats in the late evening. “The ‘W’,” He’d tell a young Will, “Stands for ‘William.’ Your mother chose that for you.”_

And for Smith, he would leave his collection of poems by W.B. Yeats. 

_His tentmate, Rossi. Rossi with such a thick Scottish accent it was sometimes hard to understand him. There was a night where he had passed out drunk after a party and Tom, also drunk, had put him into a frilly tutu._

_The next morning, he had taken it off and acted as nothing had happened._ _Will wondered how he always managed to be so dignified._

For Rossi, he would leave the most dignified item he owned - his bathrobe. 

_Cooke. Private Cooke. He always strutted into OR with the confidence of a peacock. And for a good reason, too, he was always the most fashionable with the newest extravagant dress._

Will's hands continued to work. He still didn't know what he would leave for Tom and, oh God, what if he was too late and didn't leave anything for him? Still, he had to find something for Cooke.

_Will wasn't the most fashionable in camp. He did have one thing though..._

He would leave his beloved Hawaiian shirt for Cooke, hoping his sense of style would never die out.

His shift was over a little passed oh-hundred hours and yet he still had nothing for Tom. The surgeon thanked him and shook his hand and Will smiled and nodded along. The jeep-ride home was filled with thoughts of Tom and what to leave him - what would be worth enough for him. 

When he made it back to camp, Tom was long asleep. Will shucked off his dirty scrubs into a pile on the floor he'd wash tomorrow and sat on the edge of his cot. He longingly stared at Tom's sleeping form.

Will could've lost his life.

He glanced at the picture Tom kept on his cot-side. It was a family picture of him, Myrtle, Joe, and his mother - one of the items Tom held dear to him, always telling Will about his family.

That's what he'd leave. He'd leave a letter to Ms. Blake, telling her the name of all the men Tom had saved during the war. He'd tell her of the difference Tom had made in everyone's life, the positivity that he showed in the worst of times. 

Will tossed his robe on and headed to Smith's office to write his list. Cooke reared his head through the door, noticing the light on in the office. 

"Bit late to be writing, innit, Captain?"

Will barely looked up. "I'll be done in a minute."

Cooke disappeared back into darkness. Will kept writing, 

_"To Ms. Blake : Here's a list of the lives your son had saved, the lives he had changed, and those he had helped. He is one of the best men I have ever known ..."_

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!!!!! <333


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